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School Vouchers Would Increase Costs for Local Taxpayers
State lawmakers are considering legislation that would expand the Missouri Empowerment Scholarship Accounts Program, or vouchers. The expansion of school vouchers and associated tax credits would divert state funding from local, neighborhood public schools.
The Dangers of Private School Vouchers for Idaho Students, Schools, and Communities
This report by Public Funds Public Schools (PFPS) and the Idaho Center for Fiscal Policy (the Center) explains why Idaho policymakers must continue to reject proposals for private school vouchers and instead invest in the state’s underfunded public education system, which serves the vast majority of children.
Stop Vouchers Webpage
Texas Governor Abbott called a special legislative session in October 2023 to press legislators to establish Texas’ first-ever private school voucher program, funded by all Texas taxpayers. Instead, Texas needs to invest in public schools that serve 5.4 million students and their families. The proposed voucher program would cost $500 million. Get resources here to help Texas say no to vouchers!
Who Supports Illinois’ Invest In Kids Voucher Program?
Voucher programs around the country—whether in the form of traditional vouchers, education savings accounts (ESAs),or tax credit scholarships—are supported by well funded and organized groups. These include: Americans for Prosperity (the Koch brothers’ 501c4), the American Legislative Education Council (ALEC), the American Federation for Children (Betsy DeVos’ 501c4), Moms for Liberty and the Heritage Foundation, among others.
What do these organizations have in common? They work openly to discredit public schools and push a privatization agenda, using the slogans of school choice, education freedom and parent rights. Many of them were on the ground working on the April 2023 school board elections in Illinois.
Voucher Expansion in the Midwest
The push to dismantle public education via voucher schemes that start small and then metastasize to drain public coffers isn’t just a battle happening in Illinois. It’s nationwide, and it’s accelerating.
Vouchers and Other Diversions of Public Funds to Private Schools
Vouchers are state-funded certificates that are used to pay tuition to private schools. Mississippians have been so opposed to using taxpayer dollars to fund private schools that our constitution bans these voucher payments. Savvy folks who have long sought to privatize our public schools now are attempting to circumvent the constitution – and the will of the people – by using tax credits and education savings accounts to funnel state tax dollars to private schools.
The most recent research on the academic impact of private school vouchers finds that voucher students experience significant losses in achievement. Prior research showed that gains in achievement were about the same for low income students receiving vouchers as they are for comparable public school students.
PFPS Webinar Series
Public Funds Public Schools lists their series of webinars on school voucher programs with descriptions and links.
SOS Arizona Network Blog
This web page from Save Our Schools Arizona is includes blogs on Arizona’s voucher program.
PFPS Interview with Richland County Public Education Partners
Robert Lominack, Executive Director of Richland County Public Education Partners (RCPEP), and Debbie Billings, a parent and public school advocate in South Carolina affiliated with RCPEP, spoke with Nicole Ciullo, Research & Policy Associate at Education Law Center. Founded in 2018, RCPEP works to improve Richland County public schools by supporting and developing innovative initiatives that assist teachers, students, and families. The interview, which was conducted earlier in the legislative session, has been edited for length and clarity.
The PFPS Interview: Molly Sweeney, Owen Goslin, and Arlyssa Heard from Michigan’s 482 Forward
PFPS continues to showcase the work of public education advocates across the country in the latest installment of the PFPS interview series. These interviews offer advice and insights for others fighting private school voucher proposals. Given the large number of voucher bills already introduced in the 2023 legislative session, sharing knowledge and inspiration from successful state and local organizations opposing these policies is more crucial than ever. This interview highlights the efforts of dedicated public school advocates in Betsy DeVos’s home state of Michigan, which remains voucher free despite powerful pro-privatization forces once again focusing their energies on establishing a voucher program in the Great Lakes State last year.
New analysis shows many private schools in N.C. have more vouchers than students
This session, General Assembly leaders have placed a massive expansion of the state’s voucher program at the top of their education agenda. Legislative leaders in both the House and the Senate want to triple the program’s size by opening it to wealthy families who have already enrolled their children in private schools. But new data shows that the existing program lacks adequate oversight and is potentially riven with fraud.
Data from the two agencies charged with overseeing private schools and North Carolina’s Opportunity Scholarship voucher program show several cases where schools have received more vouchers than they have students. Several other private schools have received voucher payments from the state after they have ceased submitting enrollment data.
NEPC Review: The Ohio EdChoice Program’s Impact on School District Enrollments, Finances, and Academics
A recent report from the Thomas Fordham Institute, The Ohio EdChoice Program’s Impact on School District Enrollments, Finances, and Academics, considers three possible harms associated with Ohio’s voucher program: to public school student outcomes through com- petition, to district financial resources, and increased racial segregation. Finding that Ohio vouchers have had few such harmful impacts, the report concludes that it has effectively dismissed the primary concerns of voucher critics. Yet, while the report is broadly methodologically sound for the narrow questions it poses, the questions it asks are out-of-date with respect to current concerns raised by voucher critics, which focus on substantially decreased student achievement among students using vouchers.
Vouchers and Public Benefits in the Budget
These slides from Policy Matters Ohio show how the Ohio budget funds school voucher programs compared to other public benefit programs.
State of Ohio Schools 2023
Ohio's students deserve a world-class education, including safe and well-resourced schools that are staffed with teachers who are well trained and fairly paid. Providing that education is our shared responsibility, and we all share its benefits as well: Every family does better when the next generation is prepared for the future, every community is enhanced when its young people are engaged, curious and active participants, and every boss wants a highly qualified hiring pool.
However, the combined effects of the COVID pandemic and Ohio’s legacy of inadequate, inequitable funding have weakened the role school plays as a foundational public institution. Ohio ranks 21st in the nation for K-12 education, 46th for equitable distribution of funding, and 40th in starting teacher salaries. Ohio public schools educate 1.7 million students across racial, gender, socioeconomic and geographic lines — and every one of them deserves better.
Funding Ohio’s Future
School is a place where childhood happens. Ohio’s public educators teach children of all races and backgrounds basic skills, but also challenge and inspire them to follow their dreams. For many students, school is a safe place to learn, develop and grow.
Ohio currently educates 1.6 million children attending school in our cities, suburbs and small towns. For years, almost no one was happy about how the state of Ohio funded public schools. The system pitted communities against each other and private and charter schools against public schools. We were living in the K-12 version of the “Hunger Games”: The wealthier your district, the stronger your chances of success.
The Truth About ESA Vouchers
This webpage from Save Our Schools Arizona provides resources, videos, and fact sheets about Arizona’s ESA voucher program.
Keep Public Funds in Texas Public Schools
Private school voucher bills are being debated in the Texas Legislature again this year. An ever-increasing body of research shows that vouchers negatively affect student achievement, harm rural communities, exacerbate school segregation, promote discrimination, and undermine public school systems that welcome and serve all students. Texas public schools, which educate the vast majority of children, including the largest number of rural students in the country, remain starkly underfunded. Texas lawmakers must continue rejecting proposals for harmful voucher programs and instead use state resources to invest in public schools.
Lawmakers Refuse to Adopt School Vouchers, For Now
One of the primary concerns during the Texas legislative session was Governor Greg Abbott’s pressure to pass private school vouchers by establishing education savings accounts. Proponents argued that vouchers would empower parents while ignoring all that parents and their children would lose. IDRA and other organizations and individuals expressed concerns about the negative impact vouchers would have on families, public schools and communities (IDRA, 2023; Latham Sikes, April 11, 2023a). Vouchers would divert crucial funds away from already underfunded public schools, exacerbating funding inequities and leaving some students without essential resources (PFPS, 2023).
Bill Analysis: SB 233
The Georgia Senate recently passed a bill that would funnel public state dollars to private schools. Senate Bill 233 would create a promise scholarship account (PSA), another name for a voucher, for families to pay for private school tuition or qualified education expenses with funds from the state government.[1] The bill would set aside $6,000 per academic year into a “consumer-directed account.” A family’s acceptance of these funds would act as a refusal of federal protections for students with disabilities and state laws for an adequate public education, such as background checks for teachers.
Vouchers in NC Slides
These slides from the North Carolina Justice Center show the fiscal impact of North Carolina’s Opportunity Scholarship voucher program.